JUROR GETS 5 YEARS FOR SOLICITING BRIBE

Matt O'Connor, Tribune Staff WriterCHICAGO TRIBUNE

A federal juror who solicited a bribe to fix a civil jury trial last summer was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison by a federal judge who called the misconduct an "attempted shakedown of our judicial process."

Seifullah Muhammad, 32, had been secretly tape-recorded by an undercover FBI agent while offering to throw the court case for $2,500.

Muhammad showed up at a Loop doughnut shop the next day to collect half of his payoff, but due to a mixup, no money was handed over before his arrest.

On Tuesday, Muhammad claimed he had gone to the shop to buy three blueberry doughnuts and coffee, not to consummate the illicit deal.

The night before his arrest, Muhammad insisted, he had decided not to follow through on the bribery after explaining the difference between right and wrong to one of his two young children.

U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen was not convinced. In his ruling, he said Muhammad hadn't fully accepted responsibility for his wrongdoing, noted Muhammad had been convicted twice before of theft and imposed a stiff prison term.

At his trial in January, a federal jury took only one hour to convict Muhammad of one count each of soliciting a bribe and obstructing justice, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Jerome Krulewitch.

Last August, Muhammad was a juror in a federal court product liability case, in which a worker severely injured his hand in a Waukegan plant and sued Cumberland Engineering, the machine's manufacturer.

On the day closing arguments were scheduled, Muhammad, without identifying himself, made a telephone call to the attorney representing Cumberland in the trial.

"How much is the case worth to Cumberland?" he asked the attorney, Thomas J. Doell.

The undercover agent, posing as a Cumberland representative, contacted Muhammad through a pager number he had earlier given the company.